Four years later, Nicaragua’s $40 billion interoceanic canal remains a pipe dream

(Photo: Alexander F. Yuan AP)

Politicians often announce grandiose public works that never get off the ground, but Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega should go into the Guinness Book of Records for having promised one of the world’s most ambitious — and surreal — megaprojects that may never get started.

Four years ago last month, Ortega made headlines across the world by announcing that a Chinese firm would build a $40 billion interoceanic canal in Nicaragua, which would compete with the Panama Canal and turn Nicaragua from a poverty-stricken nation into a global shipping power overnight.

In a move that looked like it was taken out of one of Gabriel García Márquez’s “magic realism” novels, Ortega ordered his loyalist congress to approve a “special law” on June 13, 2013, basically turning over the country’s national sovereignty for 50 years — with an option to extend it for another 50 years — to a then mysterious Chinese businessman named Wang Jing.

The law gave Wang’s company, Hong Kong Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co., HKND, an exclusive concession to build an interoceanic canal and seven related projects, including ports, airports and tourism resorts.

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